YES Network


The Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network is an American pay television regional sports network owned by Yankee Global Enterprises, Main Street Sports Group, Amazon, and the Blackstone Group, RedBird Capital and Mubadala Investment Company, which each own 13%. Primarily serving New York City, New York, and the surrounding metropolitan area, it broadcasts a variety of sports events, as well as magazine, documentary and discussion programs; however, its main emphasis is focused on games and team-related programs involving the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, and the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.
YES Network's offices are based at the MetLife Building in Midtown Manhattan. YES programs, including Yankees and Nets pre- and post-game shows, are produced in studios that are located in Stamford, Connecticut. The channel is available on cable and IPTV providers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and parts of Pennsylvania; it is available nationally on some cable systems, via satellite on DirecTV, and regionally on Frontier, AT&T U-verse, Verizon Fios, and Cox Communications.

History

Beginnings

YES is the product of a holding company founded in 1999 called YankeeNets, created out of a merger of the business operations of the Yankees and the New Jersey Nets. One of the reasons behind the operational merger was to allow both teams to gain better leverage over their own broadcast rights; each party believed that it would obtain better individual deals, if they negotiated the rights collectively.
Two years earlier in 1997, Cablevision – which at the time had owned the Nets' television broadcaster, SportsChannel New York – became the sole owner to the television rights of all seven Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL teams in the New York City market when it acquired the competing MSG Network, which had held the broadcast rights to the Yankees since 1989. This led to monopoly-like tactics, including the shift of some games to the cable-exclusive MSG Metro Channels, which had very limited distribution as Cablevision, Comcast and Time Warner Cable routinely fought over carriage agreements. Cablevision attempted to buy the Yankees outright, but could not agree to acceptable terms with George Steinbrenner and his partners.
To exit its MSG/Cablevision deal, the Yankees would have to give them the right to match any new right agreement and show a judge that a third party was willing to purchase their rights and launch a channel. Thus, new YankeeNets CEO Harvey Schiller hired IMG to provide a valuation for the prospective YankeeNets sport channel. IMG came back with an offer to partner on the channel with a guaranteed rights fees of $838 million. In 2000, YankeeNets and IMG proposed forming a sports channel valued as high as $2.4 billion. Cablevision sued considering its valuing as "outlandish" to block the channel. In April 2001, the suit was settled such that in June 2001, YankeeNets paid MSG to take the Yankees' TV rights in-house. IMG had been replaced by other investors, Goldman, Sachs & Company, the Quadrangle Group, Leo Hindery Jr., chief executive of the network, and Amos Hostetter Jr., a billionaire cable veteran, who in total had a 40% share of the channel.

Launch of a new network

The YES Network launched at noon on March 19, 2002, with a half-hour introductory show. The first game broadcast on YES was an exhibition game between the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds at 7 PM on the same day. At its launch, YES was available on DirecTV and to subscribers of all major New York area cable providers except Cablevision which would refuse to add the network for the 2002 season. The first regular season game broadcast on YES was played on April 1 against the Baltimore Orioles.
In late 2003, the Yankees and Nets decided to part ways, with the Nets being sold to a group led by real estate developer Bruce Ratner. The sale did not include the Nets' ownership stake in YES, which remained with the pre-merger owners of the team. As part of the sale, the Nets signed a long-term deal to keep the team's game telecasts on YES. In 2004, YankeeNets was renamed Yankee Global Enterprises, which owns the Yankees and the minority share in YES as separate companies. Therefore, the Yankees technically do not own YES. The Yankees, however, receive a rights fee from YES that is somewhat higher than MSG previously paid.

Fox ownership, FSN affiliation

In 2007, Goldman Sachs' and former Nets owner Ray Chambers' share in the network was put up for sale. In November 2012, News Corporation agreed to terms on acquiring a 49% stake in YES. As a consequence, each of the network's previous owners had their ownership stakes reduced. As a result of the sale to Fox, the Yankees agreed to keep their games on the network through 2041, which would be the network's 40th year of existence. News Corporation's interest in YES was transferred to 21st Century Fox, when the former company spun off its U.S. entertainment holdings into a separate company in July 2013.
In September 2013, rights to Fox Sports Networks' national programming were transferred to YES. On January 25, 2014, 21st Century Fox became the network's majority owner by purchasing an additional 31% share of YES Network from someone, increasing the company's ownership interest from 49% to 80%.
In 2014, the YES Network announced an average 223,000 households in Yankees game broadcasts. On May 14, 2017, YES Network aired Derek Jeter's number retirement ceremony. It got an average 724,000 viewers and a 5.79 rating in the New York City area, the highest non-game program for the network.

Disney/Fox acquisition, reacquisition by the Yankees

On December 14, 2017, the Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire 21st Century Fox following the divestiture of certain assets. While it originally included the Fox Sports Networks chain and YES Network, the Department of Justice ordered that they be sold on antitrust grounds due to Disney's ownership of ESPN.
Bloomberg News reported that the sale of stakes in YES to Fox contained a clause giving the Yankees rights to buy them back in the event of a change in ownership. On November 11, 2018, the New York Post reported that the Yankees had invoked the right of first refusal to acquire YES in the event that the sale of Fox Sports Networks to was successful, formally bidding 9 days later in a joint deal with Blackstone Group to get the 80% stake back. The Yankees also appointed the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, RedBird Capital Partners, and Mubadala Investment Company to assist with their bid for the network. Amazon, who was expected to bid for other FSN networks, instead bid for the 80% stake that Yankees want back, desiring to provide streaming services for the network.
On March 8, 2019, Fox News reported that the Yankees had reached a deal to re-purchase Fox's share in the network for $3.5 billion, with Sinclair, Amazon, and the Blackstone Group holding minority shares. Mubadala Development Company, a United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund, and RedBird Capital Partners were reported as minority investors. The deal closed on August 29, 2019.
In April 2020 during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, WCBS-TV briefly broadcast its local newscasts from the YES Network studio set due to the unavailability of the CBS Broadcast Center.

Programming

Original programming

In addition to live coverage of Yankees and Nets games, their respective pre-game and post-game shows and live press conferences, YES has produced various original programs, some of which have won local New York Emmy Awards. Other original programming featured on YES includes:
  • Boston vs. New York Poker Challenge – a poker tournament matching Yankee fans against Boston Red Sox fans. Airing for two seasons, it was a co-production of YES and Boston-based regional sports channel New England Sports Network.
  • CenterStage – a weekly program hosted by Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay, featuring in-depth interviews with various celebrities.
  • The Michael Kay Show – a video simulcast of the radio show from ESPN Radio affiliate WEPN-FM, featuring Michael Kay, Don La Greca, and Peter Rosenberg.
  • The Feed – Athletes share the stories behind their social media posts. The Feed won a New York Emmy Award for best Sports Interview/Discussion show in 2020.
  • Forbes SportsMoney – a financial magazine program produced as a joint venture between YES and Forbes, focusing on the financial aspects of the sports industry.
  • Homegrown: The Path to Pinstripes – a reality show that showcases the development of future Yankees players on their Class-AAA team, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. As of 2019 the series has expanded with the addition of a spinoff, Homegrown: The Bridge to Brooklyn, a look into the lives of the players of the Nets' NBA G League team the Long Island Nets.
  • The Mike Francesa Show – a video simulcast of the popular WFAN radio show Mike's On with host Mike Francesa. YES also simulcasted Francesa's nationally syndicated radio show The NFL Now under the title Football Sunday with Mike Francesa.
  • Nets Magazine – a weekly program featuring news, analysis and feature segments focusing on the Brooklyn Nets.
  • Yankees Classics – rebroadcasts of marquee New York Yankees games from previous years.
  • Yankees Magazine – a weekly program featuring news, analysis and feature segments focusing on the Yankees.
  • Yankeeography – a Biography-style program focusing on notable current and former Yankees personalities.
  • Yankees on Deck – a children's program in which younger Yankee fans are given an inside look at what it is like to be a member of the Yankee organization.
  • Yankees-Steiner: Memories of the Game – a reality series based around Yankee-related, and other baseball and sports memorabilia; co-produced by Yankees-Steiner Collectibles, a joint venture of the Yankees and Steiner Sports Marketing and Memorabilia.
  • YES' Ultimate Road Trip – a reality show that combined elements of The Real World and Road Rules, following a group of Yankee fans following the team around the country throughout an entire 162-game season.
  • Yogi and a Movie – A showcase of sports movies featuring wraparound commentary segments hosted by Yankee Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra.